And here I am, just sitting and blogging nothing

Right now, I don't really have anything to blog about that's worth blogging about, but here I am. Sitting and blogging nothing. Blogging as a verb: I love the way it sounds and I love what it connotes. (Hehe).

Once again, I'm the kind of student I've always described as "overrated." A UP student. Every now and then, I'd hear a tiny knock-knock from under my skull: my brain, reminding me to be happy about it. Be thankful and just get on with it already.

I had planned to blog about it, upon enrollment...then on the orientation day. Then on the first day. First weekend. I couldn't bring myself to, it was just so...uneventful. Intellectually speaking, I mean. I just didn't have anything clever to say.

I still don't (have anything clever to blog about) yet here I am. Creative hangover from having written my first UP reaction paper?


1/4 Of My First Art Stud 1 Reaction Paper - exercising my critical thinking

The exhibit in the west wing. Sorry, but it's really ugly.

I understand the sentiments behind the idea of making art out of items that could save your life in case of a flood, but I don't buy it. Neither can I understand why the artist executed it so sloppily. Then displayed it in a museum.

I'm glad I didn't have to pay to see it. I'm pretty sure it took less than an hour to make all of that. Unless the artist paid for the space, this exhibit reeks of internal museum politics. I mean, I'm pretty sure there is some sort of competition among artists for the chance to exhibit here. Of course none of these sentiments I'm expressing here are official or based on researched facts. I guess I just totally felt cheated; after having seen other exhibits in the Vargas Museum, I was expecting something more. I didn't like the Rizal Monuments either but even that was way more stimulating than this.

A work of art, by definition, communicates to its audience. My CW10 Professor, Francis Quina, talked about literature showing us different ways of looking at things, letting us reexamine our perspectives. Defamiliarization, is what he calls this concept. I think this also applies to the visual forms of art, such as sculpture and painting. To me, whatever deeper meaning the artist may have had in mind--well, it stayed right there. In his head. The rafts could have served as studies for paintings or sculptures, or he could have made them the subject of photographs. He could have put a little more love into it.

Floods can be disasters which take lives, destroy property and leave people, especially kids, traumatized. Floods can also be something people cope with, sometimes on a daily basis, in urban areas with poor drainage infrastructure. In the latter kind, people become desensitized, and stop associating strong emotions with floods. Just like people who get desensitized to poverty stop feeling sorry for the poor and just go about with their daily routines, ignoring the disparity between classes.



Sure, it's art. But not the kind that lasts, in the physical sense or in my head. If I don't forget about it in a week, it'll be because I find it particularly nasty. I don't think others will find it memorable, either.

I am obviously no fan of any artwork that stinks of "art for art's sake"--that mentality of anything goes, live and let live. I mean, sure, anybody can make art. But there must be some sort of standard on how much work, how much passion must be put into something, for it to be called art. 


THE END. BTW, Art Stud isn't a male Art whose purpose in life is to impregnate female Art.

Whaaaat?!